Dutch wood pellet imports fall sharply as energy mix evolves

The Netherlands has seen a significant contraction in wood pellet imports over the past two years, according to the country's National Market Report 2025, presented to the 83rd session of the UNECE Committee on Forests and the Forest Industry late last year.
After a sustained period of growth driven by utility-scale co-firing, imports of wood pellets into the Netherlands peaked at almost 2.7 million tonnes in 2021 before beginning a gradual decline.
By 2023, imports had already fallen to approximately 2.2 million tonnes.
The latest figures show a far steeper drop: imports declined to around 1.4 million tonnes in 2024 — a reduction of roughly 36% in a single year.
The surge in pellet imports earlier in the decade was directly linked to the expansion of biomass co-firing at Dutch power utilities, which ramped up their use of woody biomass as part of the country's broader decarbonisation commitments.
The Netherlands' National Climate Agreement, signed in 2019, set a target of at least 49% greenhouse gas emissions reduction by 2030 relative to 1990 levels, with biomass playing a transitional role alongside wind and solar in the country's energy mix.
That transitional role now appears to be contracting. Electricity production from biomass fell by 12% in 2024, even as the overall renewable energy share rose to 19.8% — up from 17.4% in 2023.
Wind and solar now account for a greater proportion of renewable generation: 32% and 22% respectively, compared to biomass at 34%.
The overall trajectory suggests the Netherlands is becoming progressively less reliant on biomass for electricity.
Domestic pellet production remained broadly stable, at approximately 233,000 metric tonnes in 2024, compared to just over 231,000 metric tonnes the previous year.
Around half of domestic production is exported, meaning the Dutch pellet manufacturing sector is only marginally exposed to the contraction in domestic demand.
The policy landscape is also shifting in ways that may further constrain the role of woody biomass for energy.
The Dutch government's Sustainability Framework for bio-based raw materials, established in 2020, introduced a hierarchical approach to biomass use — prioritising high-value material applications over energy uses, which are categorised as lower-value applications for which phase-out policy is intended.
New sustainability criteria aligned with the EU's Renewable Energy Directive III (RED III) are expected to come into effect from January 2027 at the earliest, applying to subsidised and regulated biomass used for energy.
These regulatory headwinds, combined with the rapid growth of wind and solar capacity, suggest that wood pellet consumption for power generation in the Netherlands is unlikely to return to its 2021 peak.
For bioenergy businesses with exposure to the Dutch market, the outlook points towards declining demand for utility-grade pellets and an evolving regulatory framework that will increasingly favour material over energy applications for woody biomass.